Quia ma sonat feminino moun masculino.
To femynyn gender and moun to masculyn.
Cy que en parle soit bien apris,
Et de nule homme escharnis.
So that in speach he be well learned,
And of no man scorned.
At the end is a 'calendar,' or table of words arranged alphabetically in three parallel columns. The first gives the orthography of the word, the second the pronunciation, and the third the explanation of its meaning and construction, which usually takes the form of an English equivalent.
In the meanwhile the grammatical study of French was not neglected. There are still extant numerous small treatises[85] dealing with different aspects of French grammar, chiefly the flexions, and belonging to the end of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The conjugation of verbs receives special attention, and there are several manuscripts providing paradigms and lists of the chief parts of speech—often very incorrect, and of more value as showing the interest taken in French in England than as illustrating any development in the history of the conjugations of French verbs. The usual verbs described in these fragmentary works[86] are amo, habeo, sum, volo, facio, and the French paradigms are generally accompanied by Latin ones, on which they are naturally based, and which were intended to help the student to understand the French ("cum expositione earundem in Latinis"). The two most considerable of these works known add many verbs to the list mentioned above. Of these the first, the Liber Donati,[87] gives examples of law French rather than literary French;[88] but the other, written in French, endeavours to teach "douce françois de Paris"—cy comence le Donait soloum douce franceis de Paris.[89] The Donait belongs to the fifteenth century, and is the work of one R. Dove, who also wrote some Regulae de Orthographia Gallica in Latin,[90] which show considerable resemblance to those of the earlier Orthographia Gallica. The same is true of some of the rules devoted to orthography in the Liber Donati, which also owes something to the work of 'T. H., Student of Paris,' either in the original form, or, more probably, in the recast, due to Canon Coyfurelly. In this respect, Coyfurelly continues the efforts of the earlier writer to purify English spelling of French—efforts which at this time would meet with more success than was the case earlier.[91]
Another topic touched on in the Regulae of R. Dove is the formation of the plural of nouns, and of the feminine of adjectives. The substance of one of these rules may be quoted, as an example of the failure of these early writers to grasp general principles. All nouns ending in ge, like lange, says the grammarian, take s in the plural, as langes; all nouns ending in urc, as bourc, have z or s in the plural and drop the c, as bours; all nouns ending in nyn, as conyn, take s in the plural, as chemyns; all nouns ending in eyn, as peyn, form their plural by adding s, as peyns. Such is the rule for the formation of the plural of nouns, and that for the feminine of adjectives, which follows, is on the same lines. Pronouns also received some attention from these early grammarians. The Liber Donati[92] contains a few remarks on the personal, demonstrative and possessive pronouns, giving the different forms for the singular and plural and the various cases; thus it tells us that jeo and sometimes moy are used for I (ego) in the nominative case, and in other cases moy or me in the singular, while nous is used for the plural in all cases, and so forth.
We thus see that the verbs, nouns and pronouns received consideration, varying in degree, at the hands of these pioneers in French grammar. Neither were the indeclinable parts of speech neglected; at the end of the Liber Donati there is a list of some of these as well as of the ordinal and cardinal numbers in both Latin and French, while the Donait gives the numbers only. Some manuscripts contain lists of adverbs, prepositions and conjunctions in Latin and French.[93] Others give lists of the cardinal and ordinal numbers in French, and one adds to these a nomenclature of the different colours.[94] The names of the days, months, and feast-days were another favourite subject.
Of these small treatises that which nearest approaches the form of a comprehensive grammar is the Liber Donati, which includes observations on the orthography and pronunciation, on verbs and pronouns, and lists of adverbs, conjunctions, and numerals. But there appeared at the beginning of the fifteenth century, before 1409, a more comprehensive treatise of some real value—the Donait françois pur briefment entroduyr les Anglois en la droit langue du Paris et de pais la d'entour,[95] a work which but for its very many anglicisms might be placed on a level with some of the similar grammars of the sixteenth century.[96] The origin of this Donait is interesting. A certain Englishman, John Barton, born and bred in the county of Cheshire, but a student of Paris, and a passionate lover of the French language, engaged some good clerks to compose the Donait, at his own great cost and trouble, for the benefit of the English, who are so eager ("embrasez") to learn French.[97] Judging from the lines with which Barton closes his short but communicative preface, the work was intended mainly for the use of young people—the "chers enfants" and "tres douces pucelles," 'hungering' to learn French: "Pur ce, mes chiers enfantz et tresdoulcez puselles," he writes, "que avez fam d'apprendre cest Donait scachez qu'il est divisé en belcoup de chapiters si come il apperera cy avale." Barton then retires to make way for his 'clerks,' whose remarks are entirely confined to grammatical teaching and who, like Barton, write in French.
Most of the early treatises on French grammar which appeared in England are written in Latin. Latin appears to have been the medium through which French was learnt and explained to a large extent, although in the case of the riming vocabularies English was used for teaching the young children for whom these nomenclatures were chiefly written. But grammar, probably intended to be learnt by older students, was usually studied in Latin, which was also found to be a help in learning French. Students are told to base French orthography on that of Latin, and there are constant references from French words to their Latin originals. The Donait soloum douce franceis de Paris is apparently the only work of any importance written in French before that of Barton. English was not used for this purpose before the sixteenth century, when it was almost invariably employed, even by Frenchmen. A grammar such as Barton's would, no doubt, be read and translated with the help of a tutor; and it is highly probable that the children for whom it was intended would have previously acquired some practical knowledge of French from some such elementary treatise as Bibbesworth's vocabulary. Moreover, French was so generally in use in the higher classes of society, and had been for so long a kind of semi-national tongue, that it would hardly be approached as an entirely foreign language, as in later times. In writing a French grammar in French, Barton and those who followed the same course merely adopted for the teaching of French a method in common use in the teaching of Latin. The advisability of writing French grammars in French was a question, as we shall see, much discussed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as well as in much more recent times.
The clerks employed by Barton made free use of the observations on French grammar which had appeared previously. But their work had an additional value; the rules are stated with considerable clearness and are usually correct.[98] The opening chapters deal with the letters and their pronunciation, set forth, like the rest of the grammar, in a series of questions and answers:
Quantez letters est il? Vint. Quellez? Cinq voielx et quinse consonantez. Quelx sont les voielx et ou seroit ils sonnés? Le premier vouyel est a et serra sonné en la poetrine, la seconde est e et serra sonné en la gorge, le tiers est i et serra sonné entre les joues, le quart est o et serra sonné du palat de la bouche, le quint est u et serra sonné entre les levres.